Qatar Pilots: New Pentagon Training Facility in Idaho

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military will move forward with plans to build a facility in Idaho to train pilots from Qatar, a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday.

Hegseth, who made the announcement during a visit by Qatar’s defense minister, said the facility to be built at Mountain Home Air Force Base “will host a contingent of F-15s and Qatari pilots to enhance our joint training, increase lethality and interoperability.”

The agreement is not unusual. Pentagon officials noted that similar facilities have been established for other allies for decades, and the Idaho base already hosts a Singapore fighter squadron.

But the news drew sharp criticism from Laura Loomer, a close Trump ally and right-wing commentator, who called the plan “an abomination” and accused the Qataris of being associated with Islamic terrorist organizations.

“No foreign country should have a military base on American soil. Especially Islamic countries,” Loomer wrote in one of several social media posts just hours after Hegseth’s announcement.

Although Loomer has no formal position within the Trump administration, his online complaints have had impact in the past. His criticism has led to the dismissal of officials on the National Security Council; from Dr. Vinay Prasad, chief vaccine officer at the Food and Drug Administration; and General Tim Haugh, head of the National Security Agency.

Qatar would pay for construction of the new facility, said a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide information not publicly disclosed. When asked for more details, Hegseth’s office said it had nothing to add beyond the secretary’s statements.

The announcement comes just days after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order vowing to use all measures, including military action, to defend Qatar, which hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East.

Loomer also criticized that decision. “I don’t want to die for Qatar. What about you?” he wrote on social networks. However, she was not alone.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board also questioned the promise. “This is a decision that can and should have been debated,” he wrote.

“Instead, it comes out of nowhere: an executive order without public debate,” the council noted.

Qatar was key in negotiating the most recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as well as several other negotiations. Doha, the capital of Qatar, was attacked by Israel last month while members of Hamas were in the city to discuss a ceasefire.

Qatar also gifted a $400 million plane to Trump for use as a presidential aircraft.

However, the Qataris’ connection to US military aviation is older than these developments.

In 2020, the US Air Force announced that it had signed an agreement with Qatar for the sale of more than 35 F-15 fighter jets.

An Air Force environmental study, completed two years later, revealed that Mountain Home Air Force Base proposed building a facility that would house 12 Qatari F-15 aircraft and about 300 additional Qatari and U.S. Air Force personnel.

Although the U.S. military has a long history of training pilots for allied countries, the practice came under scrutiny in 2019 following a shooting at Naval Station Pensacola that killed three U.S. service members and wounded several others.

The attacker, Mohammad Saeed Al-Shamrani, was a Saudi Air Force officer who was training at the Pensacola base. The FBI said he was linked to the extremist group Al Qaeda and had been in contact with it before the shooting.

After that shooting, the United States sent home 21 other Saudi military students after an investigation revealed that all had expressed jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media or had “contact with child pornography,” according to officials at the time. However, the United States continued to train Saudi pilots.

Loomer referenced the incident in his social media posts on Friday. “Why are we trying to train more Muslims to learn to fly airplanes on American soil? Haven’t we already learned our lesson?” he wrote. ___

This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.